I just had a thought. Chelsea only allowed 27 goals all year. Next best was 37. That is an enormous gap and a much stronger indication of defensive prowess than clean sheets. Problem is no one knows who will start.

So I thought why not start with both Cahill and Terry or Azpi and Luis? There's no good reason not to double up on far and away the best defence in the league and even if you are against doubling up you would have the flexibility to ship the one of the pair that appears to be rotated the most in the first few weeks. Those first 4 weeks include two games against promoted sides and a home game against Swansea. A trip to Everton in week 3 isn't even a horrible fixture for fixture proof Chelsea defence.

I'd wait a little til you know who's getting game time. Azpi, Luis, Ivanovic, all fighting for full-back spots (the Ake (Ah-Kee?) guy didn't look too bad either, though I doubt he'll get much action this season.) Until then, play it safe with Cahill and Terry.

What you initially said is solid though. Combine that with an incredible keeper in Courtois and I think they'll have the most CS's again this season. Which is why 2 of my 3 Chelsea players are defenders.

Their schedule is a bit erratic right now with difficult games in between easy games. Doing this with United might work better if you are willing to not have both Mata and Rooney in the team. I expect a good amount of clean sheets in the first 9 gameweeks for them so a De Gea + Defender could be a good strategy.

It's not all only about how good a team is defensively. Chelsea has a superior defense to United obviously, but over the first 9 weeks I would bet on United getting more clean sheets because of the opponents. Also their back line and goalie is basically set in stone, while picking the correct goalie or defenders for Chelsea is almost impossible.

Except that Ivanovic can rotate with literally any of the other 4, so it is possible that none of them will start every game. Wasting 6m+ on a defender just to see them not play for a week is a huge waste. United has nailed on defenders that won't sit unless they get hurt.

I'll give it a go... Azpi, Terry, Cahill, Ivanovic - it will give Luis another week to train and get used to the rest of the team etc and those 4 are comfortable playing together. I'd even guess that Cech will start the first game

The easy/hard game thing doesn't apply much to Chelsea. They could easily win 1-0 or 2-0 away versus top teams, yet at the same time lose 1-0 or 2-1 at home versus bottom teams. I hope Mourinho has worked on this, but for right now Chelsea actually play better when playing versus better teams.